Choices
by Shadow's Black Rose
Summary: Based from the episode Rage. Stabler's anger throws him out of control and he aims it at the wrong person on accident. Now, more than just his job may be on the line. He may lose the one person that trusted him. Songfic, EO


Choices

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Introduction

It happens to everyone. Whether it has or hasn't happened to you or anyone you know yet, it will eventually. We all lose control of our emotions, particularly, our rage. Our emotions are complex, confusing, and impossible to understand. Even we, ourselves, do not understand why we get angry, we become depressed, or why we're suddenly filled with joy. No one can explain these sensations, these emotions that we hold. No one will ever be able to explain them. Few can explain the reason behind emotions. Those few people are psychiatrists and shrinks. But even they don't understand human emotions, they only understand the human mind.

It New York City, there are several police squads, some for homicide, some for narcotics, but the most stressful career in law enforcement and the most emotional police squad in New York City is the Special Victims Unit. Detectives Olivia Benson, Elliot Stabler, John Munch, Odafin (Fin) Tutuola, and their captain, Donald Cragen, have handled some of the most disgusting and heart-wrenching cases to be imagined. Cases involving children, innocent women, and all different cases of rape and murder. Their emotions have been put to the ultimate test repeatedly. During each case, their hearts, and their minds, have been torn by what they saw. Innocent children being murdered, harmed, and sexually abused, women who have done nothing wrong being raped on the streets and killed. And the reasons for the crimes vary to any numerable excuse.

With cases like these, you would expect the detectives to have their emotions in check constantly and have them controlled. But like all human beings, they are far from controlling them. One detective, for example, is affected by some of the most hurtful and disgusting cases he has worked for. Most of the cases involving children have played heavily on his heart, as he is a man who has children of his own. This detective stresses day and night, fighting with his own emotions, and his family, as the cases become more and more complicated.

One case strived on this man's mind for years. Fourteen years ago, Elliot Stabler had a chance to arrest and persecute a man named Gordon Rickett for the abduction, rape, and murder of a girl named Dana MacNamara. However, Rickett managed to get away. Recently, the body of another girl named Kerry Lynn Palmer has been discovered, and Stabler had another chance at cracking this case. Similar crime, similar motive and signature, but he stressed on if he could be able to crack the criminal. The statute of arrest permits the suspect to only stay within police custody for twent-four hours, but it seemed to have been enough for Stabler. However, his rage and hatred towards this man was put to the ultimate test. And the interrogation affects him more than the suspect.

"_Gordon, you're kidding yourself if you think you're controlling it. It's controlling you. Every lie you tell to cover your inadequacies…every perceived insult you think you're getting…just feeds it."_

_Gordon Rickett looked at the detective with a dark, expecting grin, and replied to the comment._

"_You're lecturing me about rage? Are you kidding?" he asked the detective in return, a sly remark floating on his lips, feeling like a clever fox._

"_I'm not," Elliot Stabler spoke to the man. His eyes held a cold glare in them as the shadows danced across his face, which showed signs of stress and internal warfare going on within his mind._

"_What do you know about controlling anything, Detective?" Rickett spoke to the man, the proud, dark grin not fading from his face. Stabler stared at the man, waiting for a sign, a give-away, that he could use against him. However, this suspect had seemed prepared for this, prepared to be interrogated and questioned for twenty-four hours. However, he, himself, could not show any signs of vulnerability. And what was his ultimate weakness? His rage._

"_I don't murder people, Rickett," he responded to the man. _

"_Give it time," Rickett came closer to the table, his cold eyes locked with the detective's, whose face was nearly covered completely by the shadows of the room. "You say you see something in me. Well, I see something in you, too. You think you have control? You don't. You are controlled. You're controlled by your boss, by your job, by your wife…your kids….What would you be if all those controls just…went away?" _

_Stabler stared at the man, and for a brief moment, he realized that he was right. Stabler didn't have control over anything anymore. He had been stressed out by the separation of him and his wife, the loss of his kids being taken from him by his wife, his captain constantly nagging him and telling him to control his anger and rage. The only person who didn't bother him, at least not try to control him, was his partner, Olivia Benson. _

"_I'd be you," came his voice from the shadows on his face. He looked up at the suspect, and for a brief moment, made eye contact, and he could feel the reflection of his hatred towards the man being shot back towards him. Was he really that out of control?_

It was later that Elliot Stabler discovered that his rage was out of control now. Although Rickett was released later on, he was cornered and arrested, tried, and sentenced. It wasn't enough for Stabler, though. He found his rage and anger towards the man grow deeper and deeper. In fact, when they were arresting the man, Stabler froze when he thought he was going to shoot the man. Instead, his partner shot him, and later he confronted her about it.

"_I froze up. Is that why you shot him?" he asked the woman, looking at her with curiosity, and she saw the confusion in his eyes._

"_No, I shot him, because you would have. He wanted you to shoot him, to take his life. He wanted you to be haunted by knowing that, by killing him. He is not dead, and if you had killed him, you would dwell on that thought for a long time," she told him. She set down the file and began working again, but then he spoke, causing her to look up at him again._

"_He was right. I am controlled, and soon…I'll be out of control."_

After a long moment of thought in the locker room, Detective Elliot Stabler threw all of his rage into his fists and pummeled his locker, releasing his rage and anger into beating and soon, when he finally calmed down, his knuckled were red with his blood. A brief, yet terrifying moment of rage that was the first of many downfalls of emotion within the detective. He thinks of himself as a man who would never hurt a woman or child. He thinks of himself as someone who can find ways of controlling what he can't control. However…his emotions are one thing that can never be controlled by anyone…or anything.


End file.
